For a high-flying museum director, curator or specialist who reaches the top of his or her tree in the UK, moving abroad can be an attractive career move. But how easy is it to transfer the skills developed and honed in one cultural setting to a foreign institution?
It is tempting to assume that the growth in the commercial nous of UK museum leaders in the past two decades makes them very attractive to European institutions that now find themselves facing the same constraints on public funding that the UK has suffered since the 1980s.
However, Charles Saumarez Smith, the director of London's National Gallery, warns against overstating the case. He says that in countries such as Spain, where museums are emerging from civil service control, while there is a move towards the kind of commercial awareness nurtured in the UK system, it still has to be combined with intellectual achievement. 'It's the ability of prospective employees to handle both sides of the equation that's important,' he says.
Frank Birkebaek, the director of the Roskilde Museum in Denmark and a founder of the Network of European Museum Organisations, agrees that a talent for turning a financial challenge into a creative one is a key strength of UK cultural institutions.
But even though Denmark's museums are becoming more entrepreneurial in outlook, it hasn't led to a recruitment drive in the UK - it has merely meant that the same skills are now blossoming in Denmark.
John Leighton, the director of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, agrees. He says that while his museum may look to the UK for ideas, particularly in education and audience development, it does not mean there is a great demand for skills from abroad.
He says the real shortage is finding 'people with specialist skills who can raise the individual profile of the museum and know their way round international networks, rather than their desk'.
Others think that UK-honed skills have cachet on the international museum circuit, but they compete with those from other countries. Paul Thompson, the director of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York, says that, for leadership roles, the competition in the US is especially fierce.
'The leadership talent in the US not-for-profit sector is formidable - there is nothing more impressive than some of the presidents of the Ivy League universities and major cultural institutions I've seen in action,' he says. 'They are formidable scholars, scientists, conductors - and fundraisers.'
The conclusion seems to be that, if you aspire to a directorship or senior role in a museum overseas, your UK-honed talent for fundraising and general commercial nous, combined with a decent education, will stand you in good stead.
But, with the museums' employment market becoming increasingly international, competition for jobs is more intense, and homegrown talent is becoming an ever more viable recruitment option.
Australia
Elizabeth Macgregor is the director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. She joined five years ago from the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham.
'It was the job opportunity that attracted me, rather than the prospect of working in Australia, though I had been there a few times and liked it,' she says. 'Some people in the UK were surprised I went, because Australia is supposedly not close to the main arts action and everything interesting was supposed to come out of Europe and America. That's not true now, if it ever was. But I've always been interested in working outside the main centres.'
The Australian audiences are open and receptive, she says. 'People are a little less cynical about contemporary art and there's a curiosity about art that was lacking in my previous position.'
In terms of management systems and styles, she's found Australia not dissimilar to the UK, though the spectre of sexism has reared its head. The growth in partnership working in the public sector arts in the UK is something she would like to see replicated in Australia.
'Birmingham had a very forward thinking attitude to marketing to new audiences that was shared across arts bodies and the city council, and was arts board-driven. That kind of collaboration doesn't exist here and that's something we could learn from.'
On the other hand, she's found Australia to be better at supporting individuals. 'I do think that Australia treats its artists better through residencies, travel, and study support schemes. I used to feel that there was too much emphasis on the UK on supporting institutions and not artists.'
Patrick Greene left the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester in August 2002 when he was appointed the director of the Museum Victoria in Melbourne, Australia.
Greene admires Australia's international outlook and museums' willingness to employ people from other countries to meet the ambitions of their boards.
'Melbourne is a multicultural society - a third of its population was born somewhere else,' he says. 'Living here, you are not seen as an outsider but just one of many people who came here to work or develop their career. What makes it straightforward for people from the UK is that governance and funding regimes are similar.'
Compared with the UK, he's found Australian museums better at customer service. 'Museums here are very good at evaluating market research and focusing on their customers. We used it [market research] a lot in Manchester but I think it's particularly advanced here and it definitely informs the way museums develop their exhibitions and events.'
Working with indigenous peoples in Australia has made Greene acutely aware that European museums have a lot of work to do in how they deal with historical and contemporary issues emerging from multiculturalism.
'There are assumptions made by museums in industrialised western countries that have historically been colonisers, which need looking at again,' Greene says. 'The idea of museums as a platform for indigenous people to assert their identity is something I have seen developing in a number of countries.'
United States
Paul Thompson was the director of the Design Museum in London for eight years. In 2001, he was appointed the director of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York.
While the management styles and organisational structures of the US appear to be similar to the UK, the way that the Senate, Executive, and House of Representatives are organised mean that budget-making is more complex than that of Whitehall and Westminster. This can impair long-term planning, Thompson says.
The absence of a central government department for arts funding has meant that the country looks to wealthy individuals to support museums, hospitals and civic projects in general. 'The tradition of individual philanthropy is deeply entrenched in US museums - indeed, in every aspect of American living,' he says.
'And the US tax system is unbelievably geared towards stimulating both the middle class and wealthy to contribute to their favoured causes. Now that London has so many more millionaires, it is time for the chancellor to explore tax incentives more aggressively.'
The independent status of most US museums demands that trustees and staff are endowed with a greater degree of financial sophistication than in the UK.
'As most US museums are private institutions, the board has fiduciary responsibility and is not simply an advisory body. There are, of course, obvious advantages and disadvantages to this. The concept of constructing a new building and not simultaneously creating a general operating endowment fund with which to run it, would strike any American involved with museums or education as fiscally irresponsible.
'The lottery regulations of the 1990s, that specifically precluded general operating endowment support to accompany a new build project, would be considered risible in the US - and rightly so.'
Netherlands
John Leighton has been the director of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam for almost eight years. He was previously the curator of 19th century painting at the National Gallery in London.
The belief, deeply held in the UK, that museums are looking after objects in public ownership is less firmly ingrained among the Dutch, says Leighton. As a result, they have a different perspective on admission charges.
'The whole idea of museums being free is held up with a kind of religious sanctity in the UK, whereas in Holland the average person doesn't think of objects in a museum as belonging to them. Although they are happy to have access to them, they understand that this involves certain costs and therefore don't mind paying.'
As in the UK, museums in the Netherlands have found traditional forms of support and subsidy gradually being withdrawn and dependence on government lessened in local and national institutions. There's also been the same debate about museums as agents for social change.
But the picture is becoming gloomier as economic recession in Holland forces cutbacks in the arts, and politics shift to the right.
Leighton says: 'Four years ago, the Dutch government was keen to use museums as agents of social policy - what was called the integration of new Netherlanders, for example. That has more or less disappeared now.'
Also, the privatisation process is dissipating the sense of a museum community. 'Individual institutions have a lot more authority now but, while some have thrived, others have got into trouble,' he says.
'They haven't been able to develop other funding bases or develop the necessary level of professional skills to become more self-sufficient. It's also meant that the policy framework has become less defined and there's less sense of a whole set of institutions working towards a common political end.'
It is tempting to assume that the growth in the commercial nous of UK museum leaders in the past two decades makes them very attractive to European institutions that now find themselves facing the same constraints on public funding that the UK has suffered since the 1980s.
However, Charles Saumarez Smith, the director of London's National Gallery, warns against overstating the case. He says that in countries such as Spain, where museums are emerging from civil service control, while there is a move towards the kind of commercial awareness nurtured in the UK system, it still has to be combined with intellectual achievement. 'It's the ability of prospective employees to handle both sides of the equation that's important,' he says.
Frank Birkebaek, the director of the Roskilde Museum in Denmark and a founder of the Network of European Museum Organisations, agrees that a talent for turning a financial challenge into a creative one is a key strength of UK cultural institutions.
But even though Denmark's museums are becoming more entrepreneurial in outlook, it hasn't led to a recruitment drive in the UK - it has merely meant that the same skills are now blossoming in Denmark.
John Leighton, the director of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, agrees. He says that while his museum may look to the UK for ideas, particularly in education and audience development, it does not mean there is a great demand for skills from abroad.
He says the real shortage is finding 'people with specialist skills who can raise the individual profile of the museum and know their way round international networks, rather than their desk'.
Others think that UK-honed skills have cachet on the international museum circuit, but they compete with those from other countries. Paul Thompson, the director of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York, says that, for leadership roles, the competition in the US is especially fierce.
'The leadership talent in the US not-for-profit sector is formidable - there is nothing more impressive than some of the presidents of the Ivy League universities and major cultural institutions I've seen in action,' he says. 'They are formidable scholars, scientists, conductors - and fundraisers.'
The conclusion seems to be that, if you aspire to a directorship or senior role in a museum overseas, your UK-honed talent for fundraising and general commercial nous, combined with a decent education, will stand you in good stead.
But, with the museums' employment market becoming increasingly international, competition for jobs is more intense, and homegrown talent is becoming an ever more viable recruitment option.
Australia
Elizabeth Macgregor is the director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. She joined five years ago from the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham.
'It was the job opportunity that attracted me, rather than the prospect of working in Australia, though I had been there a few times and liked it,' she says. 'Some people in the UK were surprised I went, because Australia is supposedly not close to the main arts action and everything interesting was supposed to come out of Europe and America. That's not true now, if it ever was. But I've always been interested in working outside the main centres.'
The Australian audiences are open and receptive, she says. 'People are a little less cynical about contemporary art and there's a curiosity about art that was lacking in my previous position.'
In terms of management systems and styles, she's found Australia not dissimilar to the UK, though the spectre of sexism has reared its head. The growth in partnership working in the public sector arts in the UK is something she would like to see replicated in Australia.
'Birmingham had a very forward thinking attitude to marketing to new audiences that was shared across arts bodies and the city council, and was arts board-driven. That kind of collaboration doesn't exist here and that's something we could learn from.'
On the other hand, she's found Australia to be better at supporting individuals. 'I do think that Australia treats its artists better through residencies, travel, and study support schemes. I used to feel that there was too much emphasis on the UK on supporting institutions and not artists.'
Patrick Greene left the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester in August 2002 when he was appointed the director of the Museum Victoria in Melbourne, Australia.
Greene admires Australia's international outlook and museums' willingness to employ people from other countries to meet the ambitions of their boards.
'Melbourne is a multicultural society - a third of its population was born somewhere else,' he says. 'Living here, you are not seen as an outsider but just one of many people who came here to work or develop their career. What makes it straightforward for people from the UK is that governance and funding regimes are similar.'
Compared with the UK, he's found Australian museums better at customer service. 'Museums here are very good at evaluating market research and focusing on their customers. We used it [market research] a lot in Manchester but I think it's particularly advanced here and it definitely informs the way museums develop their exhibitions and events.'
Working with indigenous peoples in Australia has made Greene acutely aware that European museums have a lot of work to do in how they deal with historical and contemporary issues emerging from multiculturalism.
'There are assumptions made by museums in industrialised western countries that have historically been colonisers, which need looking at again,' Greene says. 'The idea of museums as a platform for indigenous people to assert their identity is something I have seen developing in a number of countries.'
United States
Paul Thompson was the director of the Design Museum in London for eight years. In 2001, he was appointed the director of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York.
While the management styles and organisational structures of the US appear to be similar to the UK, the way that the Senate, Executive, and House of Representatives are organised mean that budget-making is more complex than that of Whitehall and Westminster. This can impair long-term planning, Thompson says.
The absence of a central government department for arts funding has meant that the country looks to wealthy individuals to support museums, hospitals and civic projects in general. 'The tradition of individual philanthropy is deeply entrenched in US museums - indeed, in every aspect of American living,' he says.
'And the US tax system is unbelievably geared towards stimulating both the middle class and wealthy to contribute to their favoured causes. Now that London has so many more millionaires, it is time for the chancellor to explore tax incentives more aggressively.'
The independent status of most US museums demands that trustees and staff are endowed with a greater degree of financial sophistication than in the UK.
'As most US museums are private institutions, the board has fiduciary responsibility and is not simply an advisory body. There are, of course, obvious advantages and disadvantages to this. The concept of constructing a new building and not simultaneously creating a general operating endowment fund with which to run it, would strike any American involved with museums or education as fiscally irresponsible.
'The lottery regulations of the 1990s, that specifically precluded general operating endowment support to accompany a new build project, would be considered risible in the US - and rightly so.'
Netherlands
John Leighton has been the director of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam for almost eight years. He was previously the curator of 19th century painting at the National Gallery in London.
The belief, deeply held in the UK, that museums are looking after objects in public ownership is less firmly ingrained among the Dutch, says Leighton. As a result, they have a different perspective on admission charges.
'The whole idea of museums being free is held up with a kind of religious sanctity in the UK, whereas in Holland the average person doesn't think of objects in a museum as belonging to them. Although they are happy to have access to them, they understand that this involves certain costs and therefore don't mind paying.'
As in the UK, museums in the Netherlands have found traditional forms of support and subsidy gradually being withdrawn and dependence on government lessened in local and national institutions. There's also been the same debate about museums as agents for social change.
But the picture is becoming gloomier as economic recession in Holland forces cutbacks in the arts, and politics shift to the right.
Leighton says: 'Four years ago, the Dutch government was keen to use museums as agents of social policy - what was called the integration of new Netherlanders, for example. That has more or less disappeared now.'
Also, the privatisation process is dissipating the sense of a museum community. 'Individual institutions have a lot more authority now but, while some have thrived, others have got into trouble,' he says.
'They haven't been able to develop other funding bases or develop the necessary level of professional skills to become more self-sufficient. It's also meant that the policy framework has become less defined and there's less sense of a whole set of institutions working towards a common political end.'